Evil Cold 3, Ms. F. 2

This blog has veered into excessive negativity of late. Yeah, I think I'm a little depressed - it's the lack of sunlight, lack of exercise, and all the energy spent on coughing. And the kids - the kids whom I love soooo much and have so much investment in - well, they've been a tad mean-spirited since we got back from vacation. Yesterday, when I was discussing one boy's chattiness and nasty attitude with him, he told me,

I don't know how to say this, but I know I'm not the only one who thinks it. You've changed, Ms. Frizzle. You used to be one of the good teachers, not like the others, well, I won't mention any names, but not like some people. But you've changed, we all agree. We used to like doing your work because of the way you were but not anymore. Now you're all mean.

This wouldn't have gotten to me except that it's partly true; I have been a little arbitrary and even - gasp! - bitchy at times lately. But it's a cycle; the kids' behavior has also been pretty difficult to deal with, and I'm not feeling that great physically or emotionally, and unfortunately I sometimes find myself dragged into a cycle where their behavior pushes my buttons, and my response pushes them to worse behavior. Anyway, that comment hurt.

And then, in the middle of a discussion with the kids about WHY I need them to meet certain behavioral expectations and WHY I'm so annoyed when they don't, a group of boys started snickering. Again... if I were in a better frame of mind, this probably wouldn't have bothered me that much, but it was rude, and hurtful, and I felt like the kids - my sweet kids - were ganging up on me. It doesn't help that I know that the kids involved are pretty much beyond our reach as far as changing their behavior is concerned - over the last two and a half years, we've tried pretty much everything. My goal for this handful of kids is to manage their behavior so that it doesn't get any more disruptive, they can learn, and the other kids can learn... and hope that they wake up one day a little bit more mature.

I got the kids out of the classroom and on to their next class, and then I burst into tears. I do have to say, I felt much better afterwards.

And today was a good day... thank goodness!

We gave the first half of the state English Language Arts exam to the eighth graders. I am one of the two main proctors for this test, since I read well out loud (except far too fast) and have given the tests before (a long, long time ago, in a far away school, when I was a first year teacher...). Today they had multiple choice questions based on reading passages, followed by essay questions based on an article which I read out loud twice while they took notes. The kids felt pretty confident and the questions seemed very reasonable. They have another 90 minutes of ELA testing tomorrow (essays based on reading passages), and then they'll have one of the four 8th grade exams under their belt.

It started snowing during the second half of the test. I noticed it, and smiled inwardly. I knew it was only a matter of time before the kids spotted the snowflakes, and sure enough, a few minutes later, eyes started turning towards the window. The fact that it was snowing spread like an electrical charge around the room, even though the kids were silent. Snow will do that. I gestured for them to keep working, but I shared their excitement. The snow turned to rain by the time it got to the ground. If a blizzard ever started during a standardized test, I'd have to list it as a testing irregularity!

The test administration went really, really smoothly. 100% of our eighth graders came to school, even some who were not feeling all that great. That means no make up tests! And everything was really well organized and peaceful. The other grades went on about their business while our kids tested. I think that we created the best possible testing environment, and I'm really proud of that.

I've been planning my health lessons on a more-or-less "just in time" basis. I gathered lots of materials during the first marking period and have a better idea of what and how I want to teach health, but the process of revising my lessons means that I'm still doing much of it the night before the lesson. So you can imagine how happy I was to learn that NYC has purchased membership in HealthTeacher, an on-line service providing standards-linked lesson plans, background materials, etc. I promptly set up an account and logged in.

And that's when I discovered this week's most absurd bureaucratic problem: I could not access the site's sex ed lesson plans on the school computer (the computer intended for teacher use!). The department of ed's internet security decided halfway down the page of each lesson that there were too many questionable words, and blocked access to the remaining material. The right hand has no freakin' clue what the left hand is doing, at least not in this particular bureaucracy! I emailed my new health curriculum contact person to let her know about this problem, and she advised me to open an account (apparently I did not make myself clear). It's not a big deal, I can access the pages at home, and it should be easily fixed by the DOE IT department, but c'mon, people, get your act together!!!

Beyond that problem, I'm just not that impressed by the lesson plans. Some of them are very similar to what I'm doing anyway, and the others seem a little fluffy and not very inspiring. So for the moment, I'm going to keep doing this on my own. I do plan to attend the PD session they are offering in February; maybe the curriculum will look better when they demonstrate it and hand out print materials. Maybe.